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LP
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BS 083LP
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A floating drift toward a mysterious reality, between nature and cosmos, poised between sleep and wakefulness, temporal co-presences and impossible spatial ubiquities. In this phantasmagorical saga, inspired by TV science-fiction as well as '60s and '70s horror movies, Nicola Giunta/Lay Llamas creates a miraculous balance between original inserts and retrievals of freely chosen fragments from old audio documentaries on vinyl, perfecting the art of sound collage in an absolutely psychedelic way. Nonlinear dream textures become labyrinths of sudden openings, empty rooms, interstellar platforms, narrating voices from other worlds or ghostly churches from beyond the grave. A piercing electronica of cosmic synths, dense with the mists and dusts of distant times, past and future at the same time, where lysergic percussions merge with echoes of flutes vibrating in endless tropical forests and natures. Until the final awakening, in the reality of the first light of dawn.
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LP
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BS 072LP
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Nicola Giunta and Gioele Valenti (the musicians creating the Lay Llamas dimension) seem to communicate from a different solar system their ecstatic gaze towards an imaginary future world. They rely mainly on a narrative tone of mysterious and spectral dark-psych shades, digging abyss of glacial depth of the self, where light filters through lysergic languor and radiant progressions of luminous dust. Oneiric voices refer to the hybrid chaos of a metropolitan jungle, as a hypnotic and psychic dimension of mind layers. Goud is steeped in numerous literary, mythological, philosophical, ecological, and alchemical references. Pulsating and magnetic Farfisa, mesmeric basses and flutes or poisonous Pink Floydian and krautrock patterns forge a clear divinatory aspect of the music. The trip ends in the dark night of the forest, with more acoustic flavors and percussive incense of pure acid-folk. The beautiful cover by Virginia Genta by Jooklo, with her amoebic-cosmic graphics, seems to perfectly seal the sound inspiration of one of the most advanced forges of Italian neo-psychedelia.
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CD
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LAUNCH 065CD
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This is the debut album from Lay Llamas, the Rome-based duo of Gioele Valenti and Nicola Giunta. Recorded in an old house in the Segesta countryside of Sicily, Valenti and Giunta soaked up the history-imbued environment. The makeshift studio was located alongside the great Temple of Hera that dates all the way back to 6th century B.C. These recording sessions have resulted in a heavily layered album, filled (but not clogged) with various instrumentation -- from the usual guitars, bass, synth and drums, to the more unexpected sounds of Tibetan bells and ukulele. Ostro reflects a continent-leaping, platform-splitting array of personal influences that then seeps into their lysergic output. Purely on a musical level there is a joint love of artists such as Ennio Morricone, which then splits off into the structured and the song-heavy (Angels Of Light, Nick Drake, Mike Scott) to the rhythmic, both the hypnotic and groove-laden sort (Fela Kuti, Broadcast, Sun Araw, Kraftwerk). Italian tradition plays a pivotal role, too, with the creeping tones and floating atmospheres of '60s and '70s Italian library and soundtrack music playing a subtle supporting-role. Ostro is a constantly shifting record, never remaining stuck or fixated on anything for too long. Crossing continents, be it musically, stylistically or physically, seems to be something the pair return to over and over again, and the subtle radiations of Africa that can be heard on the record are no accident. While the duo work from a shared vision that places a keen focus on stream-of-consciousness approaches or, as Valenti puts it, "a prismatic panorama, or well, a BRAINMATIC PANORAMA," there really is an ambiguity, an uncertainness and a sense of the unknown, the otherworldly and the mystical when traversing through the vast spheres of the record. The pair's own descriptions of some of the album's tracks are testament to the sprawling, shifting, mass of it all -- "Suicide and Oneida dancing together around a big campfire." Some records aim to exist by not coming from a particular place but to exist in the transitions and journeys in-between them. Be them real, mystical or imaginary, present or past, the focus is on the movement rather than the end destination and the Lay Llamas' debut album is most certainly one such record.
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LP
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LAUNCH 065LP
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